Papers, Please, a ‘dystopian document thriller’ from American developer Lucas Pope, is an oppressive marvel. The kind of game that makes you thankful for an independent scene that bristles with daring and invention. Where else, for instance, could you cast yourself as a border control officer of a fictional Eastern Bloc country in the aftermath of war with its neighbours? It’s the antithesis of the traditional video game hero, instead you are a tiny, dirty cog in a vast totalitarian machine, ready to tread on the hopes of refugees in exchange for the few credits of pay that will feed your family for the night.

You are a citizen of Arstotzka, a communist state that has just ended a six-year war with the neighbouring Kolechia. A labour lottery has assigned you to the role of immigration officer on the Grestin checkpoint, where you will control the flow of people entering the country. You sit in your grotty booth, call the next person in line to the desk, check their papers and decide their fate with the inky kerchunk of an Admitted or Denied stamp. Correct assignment earns you five credits, while mistakes are greeted with a violation notice. You’re allowed two warnings, after which every incorrect stamp is greeted with a five credit fine.

The game is played in days, with a strict cut-off point at 6pm. Immigrants appear at your desk and hand over their documents, which you can then pick up and drag across for inspection. Discrepancies --such as expired passport dates or mismatching photos-- can be highlighted and cross-checked. If the immigrant’s explanation for any missing or mismatched info is unsatisfactory, it’s a red stamp and back where they came from. Everything in order? Green stamp and they’re through.

It starts simply enough with only Arstozkans allowed, before foreigners with correct documentation can be admitted. This documentation, however, becomes ever more complex and elaborate as the game’s grim tale unfolds. As do your own tools and powers. Two weeks in, if you’ve managed to keep your job for that long, a typical immigrant check will have you poring over passports, identity supplements, entry permits and work permits, checking the the numbers and dates add up. Make sure the issuing city is correct in your essential handbook. Photo doesn’t match the sorry sack of humanity standing desperately in front of you? Fingerprint check. A few pounds heavier than listed on your ID supplement, sir? Please step into the scanner so we can check for contraband. Admit, admit, deny, admit, detain, admit, please come back tomorrow.

When simply taken as a puzzle game, Papers, Please is wonderfully layered. Finding discrepancies brings a grim thrill, a ‘gotcha’ moment that is plainly at odds with this miserable job, and as the game progresses the paperwork investigation draws you further in. On several occasions the game deliberately flirts with benign repetition, speaking to the monotonous grind of a state drone. But while it dares take you to the brink of boredom, it never crosses that line, introducing something new or hitting a story beat to keep things interesting.

The rules you are given for your task are in stark black and white. In or out. Green or red. But it’s the grey areas that Papers, Please operates in that are the most compelling. At first, you rattle through the immigrants like a good worker drone. Processing them correctly, whisking the properly equipped through and sending the others packing. Then comes your first guilty pang, as you deny entry to a mother returning to her son, whose entry permit is a single day expired.

Papers, Please is terrifically written, the characters of the immigrants laid bare in a couple of sentences. It burrows into your moral psyche as the choices you make get ever tougher. Will you allow a married couple to enter even though they only have one entry permit between them? A woman with an expired passport pleads she will be killed if she returns home, can you live with yourself if you don’t admit her?

The most awful question the game poses is: can you live with yourself if you do? At the end of each day your paltry wages go towards keeping your extended family fed and warm. If you don’t process these people as the state say you should, you may not be able to afford medicine for your sick son. Is it the kind of thing that drives a man to detaining people for mild violations because a border guard has offered a few credits for extra prisoners?

It’s bleak, oppressive, perfectly paced and utterly gripping. But with its downtrodden lo-fi visuals and peculiar focus on complicated paperwork, it’s not going to be a game for everyone. But it’s a game everyone should be thrilled exists in a vibrant and daring independent scene, tapping a reservoir of fascinating themes and content that mainstream games dare not touch.